


In Good Hands

by bluebirdsandbumblebees



Category: The Lord of the Rings (Movies), The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: M/M, Or strictly platonic.... if you're into that, Rivendell | Imladris, The Shire, This could also be read as queerplatonic, feel free to make of this what you like, i guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-27
Updated: 2020-07-27
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:06:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25542571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluebirdsandbumblebees/pseuds/bluebirdsandbumblebees
Summary: In which Bilbo is observant, and Sam is both terrified and relieved because of it.Alternatively: Sam Gamgee and Mister Bilbo Baggins have a chat over Frodo's Wraith-induced comatose body, but it's nicer than it sounds (hopefully).
Relationships: Frodo Baggins/Sam Gamgee
Comments: 2
Kudos: 26





	In Good Hands

Samwise started as a loud scraping cut abruptly into the serenity of Rivendell's late afternoon, dropping Frodo's clammy hand with a twinge of reluctant shame. He hastened to his feet, surprised to find that the source of the noise had come from the tiny Mister Bilbo Baggins, who was, with some effort, dragging a chair to rest next to Gandalf's empty one. Sam watched the old hobbit totter about for a moment, in a kind of awkward stupor, before shaking his head and moving forward, a hand extended, offering to move the chair. Bilbo glanced up at him and nodded, face unreadable.

"Thank you very much."

"Of course, sir," said Sam automatically, smiling as Bilbo settled into the chair, now moved to Frodo's bedside. Sam himself shifted so as to give the elder hobbit time with his comatose nephew. He slipped into the only shadow in the bright, sunlit room- found in a tight corner. It suited him well enough. The pair of hobbits then fell into a deep, uncomfortable silence, wherein Sam felt Mister Baggins could surely hear his heart beating through his shirt. 

"You don't have to stay back there in the shadows, my lad," Bilbo sighed. With a gnarled hand, he waved Sam forward. "You've got as much reason to see him as I have." Too surprised to say much, Sam stumbled forward as though drawn with a rope around his middle. The other end was, predictably, around the limp wrist of Frodo Baggins, and he grabbed for it as soon as his master was once again in reach. Bilbo saw this and nodded like one whose long-predicted hypothesis had finally been proven. Sam, of course, didn't notice- he was far too preoccupied with gazing longingly at the young Baggins. 

“I understand that you’ve been tasked in looking after Frodo,” said Bilbo suddenly, gazing at Sam with a pointed look and a hint of a smile playing across his wizened lips.

“I have, sir,” Sam responded dutifully, the dream having been broken, “He's been asleep this whole time, I swear."

"Not that," said Mister Baggins, looking down at Frodo with a distant kind of sadness. "I mean... before all this. You've tailed him the whole way from Hobbiton, haven't you? Taken care of him? Gandalf says you've done quite a lot to help Frodo in his quest. He speaks very highly of you," Bilbo took the time here to shoot him an appraising look. "And a compliment from an Istari goes a long way."

Sam didn't know what an 'Istari' was, and didn't want to seem too officious by asking. He was certain that it was none of his business. Still, one part of Bilbo's speech made his ears twitch uncomfortably, and he immediately set to fixing it. "Begging your pardon, Mister Bilbo, sir. But I don’t think I’ve done much in the way of helping him. I’m sure he struggles much more than he talks of.”

“He’s always done that.” Bilbo grinned and waved off Sam’s doubt as one might swat away a pesky housefly. “But you—you know him well. It’s Master Gamgee, isn’t it? Old Gaffer’s boy?”

“I’m no master,” Sam said quietly, going red to the tips of his ears. “I’m just Sam. Just Sam Gamgee. Son of Old Gaffer… ‘s me.”

“Your father’s a fine gardener, boy. Best this old Baggins has ever had the pleasure of knowing. Or employing, for that matter.” Bilbo laughed. “He’s given me excellent tips on how to grow proper potatoes. I expect you’ve inherited some of that love of growing things?”

Sam recognized this tactic as one used by the elder Hobbits to get him talking—being the quiet one at a table of Old Gaffer’s and his drinking-smoking-bragging-about-gardening-mates made him an expert in the art of diverting conversation back to drinking, smoking, or bragging about gardening. Talking about himself was never Sam’s strong point, and he had no love of hammering on about his dislikes or desires—especially when there was a Hobbit with such a way with words, so many interesting tales to tell, and such a love of telling them, right nearby.

“I don’t rightly know if I have, sir. But I take pride in the gardens at Bag End anyway, sir. But your stories were always more interesting than the potatoes. Begging your pardon, Mister Bilbo, sir.”

His diversion didn’t work.

“You may have my pardon, Sam Gamgee,” said Bilbo Baggins with a twinkle in his eye. “Though I think our Mr. Frodo may have more to do with your staying on than my dull old tales.”

Sam blushed deeply, sputtering a few words of denial, wondering suddenly if Mister Bilbo had caught him staring at Frodo on gardening hours, if he had seen Sam’s blush whenever Frodo, in one of his fits of beautiful, free-spirited adventurousness, grabbed the young gardener’s arm and whisked him into a twirling waltz. If he had stood silently in the doorway of Bag End as the two young Hobbits came tramping up the Road to Hobbiton, arms around each other, faces red as ripe raspberries as they drunkenly clung to one another in a hazy summer evening. If he had recognized then that the lights in their faces were less of the glittering faerie lights lining the way home, and more from the affection they shared, the kind that seemed to flame up and illuminate its hosts from within. Moreover, if he had, just now, stood silently in the door of Rivendell’s House of Healing, listening to Sam spill all his feelings over the object of his affections—who was currently lying, comatose, (hopefully) recovering from a wound that might have ended his life, cold and afraid, on the Road.

“Y-your stories are excellent, Mister Bilbo,” Sam insisted in a last-ditch effort to divert the conversation from Frodo and whatever confessions his uncle might have just caught. Mister Baggins, though seeming gentle and wise (and also old and thus weakened by age and arthritis), had gained the title of most famousest of Hobbits by stealing from and slaying a giant dragon, after all. Sam hated to think of what the old Hobbit could do to him if he decided he didn’t like the idea of his well-to-do nephew skipping off with the gardener.

Thankfully, Bilbo showed no signs of running him through with a sword or dragging him from Frodo’s bedside by his ear (for the time being), because he laughed a deep, full-bellied laugh—one that he probably picked up from much time spent with Dwarves—and clapped Sam on the shoulder. “Dear boy,” he said, and Sam thought that was a good sign and breathed a small sigh of relief, “Dear, dear Samwise. You have very clearly done much good by my nephew, and though I would hate to be parted from him a second time, I cannot think of anyone I would trust more to look after him. He cares for you very deeply, I’m sure you know, and I’m glad you have accompanied him thus far.”

Sam could not think of anything to say, so he settled on a simple, exuberant “thank you!” for the time being. Bilbo smiled and nodded, rising unsteadily from his seat.

“Thank _you_ ,” said the Hobbit kindly, and he looked very old standing there in the doorway.

.

Bilbo Baggins watched as Sam turned and smiled gently at Frodo. He thought about what Gandalf had told him of their journey and felt doubt and the painful fleetingness of peace rise in his heart. Whether the totality of their quest was behind them was entirely unknown, both to Bilbo and to the two young Hobbits. They had been through so much danger, taken so much pain, in the short span of their excursion, and it seemed unfair that their future was so uncertain. Still, with the way Sam gazed at Frodo, a fond glow dominating his gaze, the hope seemed again to rise. As Sam took the comatose Hobbit’s clammy hand and pressed it between his, a blush grew into the tips of his ears. The young gardener leaned forward and whispered something to Bilbo’s nephew, and it seemed for a moment that the face of the latter brightened, and some colour began to return, however slowly, to his visage. Bilbo realized then that whatever followed with the decision of the Council, these two young Hobbits would face it together.

“And certainly,” Bilbo said to himself, grinning as he noticed a small smile lifting at the corners of his nephew’s lips, “Frodo will be in good hands.”


End file.
